Sunday, December 27, 2015

A Reality Check...The Necessary First Step Before Starting A Home Business

I have helped thousands of people start up their own home 
based businesses using the Internet. Over time, I have come to 
recognize two of the most important factors for identifying 
people that should NOT start a home based business. 



If a prospective entrepreneur says something like... 



"I'm broke and need to make some money...fast!" 



or, 



"I want to start a home business, but I don't want to spend 
anything on it until after I start earning some money." 



...it is certain that they have not "gotten real" and should not 
attempt to start a home business under either of those 
conditions. I refer to them as the "death sentences" for 
starting a home based business. 



Almost equally important is the need to have realistic economic 
expectations when undertaking a home based business. There is no 
magic here, folks. A home based business provides many rewards 
such as working in the comfort of your own home, avoiding a 
stressful commute, being your own boss, setting your own hours, 
no dress code, etc., etc., but anyone that is also expecting 
"instant riches" is sadly mistaken. 



There are a tremendous number of home business and work at home 
opportunities offered on the Internet. Many of these are all 
hype and try to convince you that you will be making huge amounts 
of money in very little time (you know, stuff like..."you will be 
making $5,000 per week, and more, in just a few weeks!"). You 
should avoid these like the plague...if they were for real 
everyone would be doing it. 



Study the opportunities carefully and select the home business 
opportunity that seems to fit your own particular style or 
talents. What is a good choice for one person may be a very poor 
fit for someone else. The common thread that applies to everyone 
is that you must be "for real" (as indicated above) and the 
business opportunity itself must be "for real". 

Saturday, December 26, 2015

A Major Temptation When Developing A Home-Based Business

From what I have seen and experienced, to quit is the greatest 
temptation during the first year of working at a home-based 
business. If smoking was like working at a home-based business, 
the occurrence of lung cancer would be dramatically reduced. 

It is a known fact that a majority of the people that undertake 
a work at home business do not achieve real success. There are 
several reasons for this, but one of the primary reasons is that 
these people get frustrated and do not allow themselves enough 
time to succeed. 

In the early going, one of the most difficult things about 
developing a new home based business is dealing with the emotional 
roller coaster that can result from the highs (successes) and lows 
(temporary setbacks) you are almost certain to experience. Once 
you have done the research and decided on a particular home based 
business opportunity, you really need to focus on persistence and 
realize that any real business will not just automatically become 
successful in a matter of days or weeks. You should be prepared to 
give it your best sustained effort for at least 6 to 12 months in 
order to begin to build a solid business base and begin to see 
some good income. 

Highs and lows were something that I began to notice when I first 
started a home based business. I have many years of top level 
management experience in "traditional" corporations and have 
experienced lots of business cycles (corporate "ups and downs"), 
but the natural "ups and downs" that occur in a home business 
(particularly in the early stages) can be brutal from an 
emotional standpoint if you don't prepare yourself in advance for 
the fact that it is a basic law of nature...it will be a rocky 
road until you have spent enough time and effort to build your 
business to a level that sort of smoothes out the peaks and 
valleys. 

The impact of the highs and lows you will probably experience in 
developing your home based business is amplified by the fact that 
you are now in business on your own. You are the boss and get to 
make all the decisions, but you are also on your own in dealing 
with the frustrations that will occur along the way while you are 
developing your business. 

When working at home a person can, at times, experience a feeling 
of isolation which is probably brought on by the lack of 
interaction of a work force environment. 

There can also be periods of doubt in the early going...gee, did 
I pick a viable business opportunity?...am I doing the right 
things to develop my business?...when will I start making a 
profit?, and so on. 

You are most likely going to experience the "two steps forward 
and one step backward" syndrome and the ever-looming temptation 
to become discouraged. However, keep in mind that as long 
as you have more steps going forward than backward, you will 
eventually get ahead! Simple, but often overlooked. 

Relatively minor setbacks can seem huge in the early stages of 
developing a work at home business and can really contribute to 
some noticeable "mood swings". For example, if you are just 
starting out and you have four customers/clients and you happen 
to lose one...that's a 25% drop! However, if you fast-forward in 
time to the point where you have hundreds of customers/clients 
and you lose one...that's just a mere fraction of 1%! Exactly 
the same event, just at a different point in time. 

Hang in there and just keep on keepin' on. If you have chosen a 
viable home business opportunity (one that has been around for 
awhile and in which some other people are having success) you 
will achieve success, but it takes time and there will be ups and 
downs along the way. Remember the old saying..."it takes a long 
time to become an overnight success"

A Home Based Business Means Quick, Easy Money...And Pigs Will Fly



Yup, here come those wonderful flying pigs! 

Where does it ever end? I've been involved with Internet-based 
home businesses for several years and I continue to be exposed to 
a seemingly endless barrage of offers (all costing me money, of 
course) claiming to be "the secret" for making a fantastic income, 
in a very short time, and with very little effort involved. 

I must admit that I may have a slightly self-serving reason for 
addressing this topic. My articles are published on my 
home-based business websites for the purpose of trying to give 
prospective team members a true sense of what is really involved 
with starting and developing a successful home based business. 
The self-serving part, I suppose, is that I want people joining 
my team to have the straight scoop going in so that we don't 
waste each other's time. I admit to being selfish in this 
regard (I don't want to waste time working with people that have 
unrealistic expectations), but it is also very efficient for 
both parties involved, so it is not a totally one-way thing. 

Now, back to the topic at hand. There's no magic here, folks. 
Once you have selected the home business that you are going to 
pursue, there are no substitutes for time and effort in 
developing your business. A dream of being an "overnight 
success" is just that, a dream. 

I can tell you from personal experience, that once you "pay your 
dues" and begin to have real success with a home based business, 
it is really terrific. Think about Nirvana or Valhalla, take 
your pick, but in any event it's really sweet. 

When I started developing a home based business, making a good 
income was obviously an objective, but I also had other 
sub-objectives. One of the most important things was to have 
nearly total time flexibility (I mean, if I was willing to 
continue to wear the 9-5 Mon-Fri collar I could just have just 
stayed in the previously "traditional" work force). 

Time flexibility was (and still is) a "biggie" for me. Many 
people working at home have the same need for various reasons. 
For work at home moms, a home business can be a real godsend to 
accommodate the hectic time pressures, particularly when the kids 
are quite young and mom is also spelled "transportation". 

In my own particular case, the reason is not quite so noble...I 
just want (need?) to be able to pick up my fly rod and go fishing 
at a moments notice (sometimes I'll be gone for a week or two at 
a time, but now the business has enough momentum that it keeps on 
operating just as well as if I were here tending to it on a 
daily basis). 

Bear in mind, I am only able do the breakaway thing now that I 
have put in all the up-front time and effort and now have 
developed enough kinetic energy in my home-based Internet 
business to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor.